OK. Here's the deal: I've got a Korg DW8000 synth and, like many DW8000 owners, wish to control its parameters in real-time — making patch programming a bit easier/less time consuming and adding more "life" to performances. I've been looking at two controllers — Behringer's BCR-2000 and Encore Electronics' Knobby — however, cannot decide between the two. Both are nearly identical in price and function, with a few small differences. On the BCR2000 front, I like that all of the rotary knobs are "there", visible and easily accessible. I do think, however, that it's a bit bulky. But I do like that it's a favorite amongst users and that support for it is wide. On the Knobby front, it's designed to do exactly what I'm looking to do and there is already a user-made library for the DW8000, whereas with the BCR ... I'm not sure how hard it'd be to program or what kinds of workarounds would be involved to get it to do what I want it to do. However, I haven't been able to find much information on the Knobby, aside from mention on this site and a couple of (dated) reviews listed on Encore Electronics' site. I'm wondering if you guys could help me come to decision: does anyone out there have experience with either of these two controllers for controlling hardware synths and, if so, what's been your experience with it? Regards.

I have BCR2000 and EX-8000, works great. I believe there is a preset for it in the yahoo groups, I "taught" mine with a Cubase device panel. I noticed some parameters acting differently with the controller, you can detune the h**l out of it for example. In a true Behringer fashion it works great on some synths and is utter s**t on others.

I have a BCR2000 and it works well, I like having all the controls immediate for my tweaking. Visit the BCR yahoo group and read through it. There is a lot of support for this controller. You can then decide if its what you want:

I don't think the UC33 sends sysex strings from its controls, which is what is needed to control the DW8000 and almost all of the 80s era synths - i looked into all of those controllers too before finding the BCR. I could be wrong though, but I seem to remember writing that one off for that reason.

I just ordered a knobby yesterday, I'll let you know what I think of it when it arrives. I'm going to use it to control my micro modular and later I'll attempt to have it control the fm section on my sy22, although I won't be able to do the later in real time. The behringer was just too damn big for me, plus I like the idea of having 15 banks of 8 knobs.

Well I got the Knobby yesterday and I have to say I like it so far. The software is pretty straight forward for assigning midi cc to the knobs, but I haven't used the sysex and other options. The build quality seems pretty good, the case is all metal and has a pretty good heft to it. The knobs are fairly solid too, and there is some slight wobble, but its probably on par with or better than other software controllers in its price range. Of course the only midi controller I could compare it to in this aspect is the maudio oxygen and well its build quality is a quite a bit better obviously. Over all I'm quite happy with my purchase and Tony from encore got my package to me extremely quickly and responded to my emails in a timely fashion.

*edit its been a week, and I'm still very happy with it. I actually wish the knobs where a bit smaller though and at this point I would say that they have a similar feel to those on the microkorg.